GR: baize fields and paper gaming

[malignd at aol.com]

http://www.gamingpaper.com/


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Jing <mikezjing at hotmail.com>
To: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Mar 8, 2011 6:49 am
Subject: RE: GR: baize fields and paper gaming



That's all well and good.  But what about "paper gaming" then?  Could 
it be that they are watching him while playing pool and cards?


> Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2011 14:57:36 -0500
> Subject: Re: GR: baize fields and paper gaming
> From: michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>
> no single web gleaning strikes me as exactly "spot on" but there are
> several which, en masse, seem to evoke appropriate notions:
>
>
> blue baize -
> a) cloth often used on pool tables (more often green, but not always:
> 
http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/pub-of-the-week-blog/review-toolangi-tavern/20090801-e4yl.html
> -- "The deck is through the main area and is home to a blue baize
> billiard table.")
>
> b) cloth used inside a gun case
> 
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/12-gauge-bonehill-boxlock-ejector-double-barrel-s
> "Canvas covered trunk case with blue baize interior."
>
> c) cloth for a (naval?) uniform
> http://www.firthness.com/fanfiction/uniformly-charming/FWC/two.htm
> The dark blue baize of his uniform was absorbing the heat and becoming
> uncomfortable.
>
> d) covering for a bulletin board:
> http://bristolthrall.blogspot.com/
> "On the Captain’s walls hung several prints, each appearing to depict
> a naval engagement. There were numerous model ships and, bizarrely it
> seemed to Stephane, a submarine in a bottle. A row of service medals
> was pinned to a blue baize board above the mantel and any number of
> photographs, most now faded and indistinct, lined up beneath like a
> roll call of the dear departed."
>
> e) winding sheet:
> http://www.sip.illinois.edu/people/rromero/alamo.htm
> ". . . Manzanet and his companions were joyfully and kindly received
> and shown every consideration. The Governor, or Chief, of the Tejas
> Indians one day asked Manzanet for some blue baize in which to bury
> his grandmother when she died.
>
> "Manzanet asked him why he desired it blue. The Chief replied that it
> was because a beautiful woman who had come often to visit their tribe
> and whom they reverenced wore blue, and they wished to be like her on
> passing to the other world … she had promised them teachers, and now
> that Manzanet and his companions had come, the "high priest" or
> medicine man of the tribe had told them that these were the true
> teachers who had been expected."
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sun, Mar 6, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Mike Jing <mikezjing at hotmail.com> 
wrote:
> > Pg 14, Line 15-19
> > "Into the dossier it goes, and eventually the Firm, in Their 
tireless
> > search for negotiable skills, will summon him under Whitehall, to
> > observe him in his trances across the blue baize fields and the
> > terrible paper gaming, his eyes rolled back into his head reading 
old,
> > glyptic old graffiti on his own sockets...."
> >
> > I too am mystified by this.  A search in the archive yields:
> >
> > Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 19:35:10 -0800 (PST)
> > From: Cometman <cometman_98@[omitted]>
> > Subject: GRGR 1,2 correction / blue baize
> > To: pynchon-l@[omitted]
> >
> > maybe there's a blue baize blotter or something on the evaluator's
> > desk, covered with lots of paperwork. It's "under Whitehall" so 
these
> > would be secret offices...and the paperwork would be terrible,
> > concerned as it would be with The Great Game
> > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Game)
> >
> > Could it be a table covered in blue baize with miniature military 
models
> > made of paper and used for war games?  Anyone has further insight 
into this?
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> "The general agreement is that language should be a kind of honey.  I
> like it to be a kind of speed." - Michael Moorcock